On a crisp evening in December 2023, I received an urgent alert: a swarm of unidentified drones had been detected above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, inside highly restricted airspace. As NASA administrator at the time, I was immediately concerned. Langley is one of the most sensitive sites in the United States — home to F-22 Raptors, supersonic stealth fighters with highly classified capabilities and NORAD operations. It also happens to neighbor NASA’s Langley Research Center, where our experimental technology had spotted the drones.
Isolated drone sightings around military bases weren’t unheard-of, but nothing like this swarm had ever happened before. I called senior Pentagon officials twice and raised the issue with staff at the National Security Council. I noted it was NASA technology that was able to see the drones, and based on our observations, this activity wasn’t random: It’s plausible the drones launched from a ship or submarine lurking as little as three miles offshore in international waters, or perhaps from trucks or trailers concealed in nearby woodlands.
The incursion by the drones lasted 17 days. To my knowledge, we still do not know their origin or purpose, or how much of a threat they posed. But it was thanks to NASA technology that they were even picked up in the first place. The Air Force base did not have that capability.
If a drone incursion could do something like this at Langley, what would stop a determined adversary from launching a flock of spacecraft-downing drones at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station? Or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California? Or Wallops Island off Virginia? These aren’t just sites for launching rockets into space and delivering NASA payloads into orbit — they’re strategic targets vital to the defense of our homeland.
The events at Langley underscore how although NASA is a civilian agency for space exploration, its role stretches beyond that. Its study of the environment of space makes it possible for the United States to launch and operate satellites vital for spotting unusual things that NASA calls “anomalies” and allowing communications across the globe. Its technological advancements have made it possible to develop state-of-the-art rockets and aircraft that few other countries can match.
Winning the race to the moon bolstered national prestige and geopolitical dominance that helped the United States win the Cold War. NASA’s fleet of Earth observation satellites gives vulnerable communities the information they need to plan for an uncertain future under climate change. And its scientific research into the furthest reaches of the solar system and beyond opens our eyes to the awesome nature of the universe, reminding us of our shared humanity.